"Ho,
they won't agree this night," said the Angel, "come away; the lawyers are
richer than the merchants, the money-lenders than the lawyers, the
stewards than the money-lenders, and Belial richer than all; for they and
all that belongs to them are his." "Why does the princess keep these
robbers about her?" "What more befitting, seeing that she herself is
arch-robber?" I was amazed to hear him call the princess by such name,
and the proudest gentry in the land arrant robbers. "Why, pray my lord,"
said I, "do you consider these great noblemen worse thieves than
highwaymen?" "Thou art a simpleton--think on that knave who roves the
wide world over, sword in hand, and with his ravagers at his back,
slaying and burning, and depriving the true possessors of their states,
and afterwards expecting to be worshipped as conqueror; is he not worse
than the petty thief who takes a purse on the highway? What is a tailor
who filches a piece of cloth compared to a squire who steals from the
mountain-side half a parish? Ought the latter not be called a worse
robber than the former, who only takes a shred from him, while he
deprives the poor of pasture for his beast, and consequently of the means
of livelihood for himself, and those depending upon him? What is the
stealing a handful of flour in the mill compared with the storing up of a
hundred bushels to rot, in order to obtain later on for one bushel the
price of four? What is a threadbare soldier who robs thee of thy clothes
at the swords' point when compared with the lawyer who despoils thee of
thy whole estate with the stroke of a quill, and against whom thou canst
claim no recompense or remedy? What is a pickpocket who steals a five-
pound in comparison to a dice-sharper who robs thee of a hundred pounds
in the third part of a night? And what the swindler that deceives thee
in a worthless old hack compared with the apothecary who swindles thee of
thy money and life too, for some effete, medicinal stuff? And moreover,
what are all these robbers compared with that great arch-robber who
deprives them all of everything, yea, of their hearts and souls after the
fair is over?"
From this foul and disorderly street we proceeded to the street of the
Princess of Pleasure wherein I saw many English, French, Italians and
Paynims.
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